Tax avoidance: Perfectly legal. Who would pay taxes that they don't have to? If your accountant advises you how you can legally hang on to more of your money you would be a fool to ignore him - If you are not bothered then don't have an accountant.
Tax evasion: Criminal offence of not paying what you should.

I tend to agree with BJ - I'm no big Jummy Carr fan, although can make me laugh quite often, but there are VERY few people who would not pay less tax legally given the opportunity. Duty free cigs / booze etc is a prime example. Whilst the scale is different the principle isn't. I heard Rufus Hound on the radio saying how whilst he doesn't agree with the JC 10 o'clock live hypocrisy, if anyone had a chance to go into a booth with two buttons, one 5% and one 50% which was the tax you'd pay, and no one would ever know which you chose, who the hell would press the 50% ?

Put his head in the loophole then close it. Scroat has got it right.
If the principle is "don't pay any tax if you can get away with it" then it sucks as a principle and those who act on that principle are motivated by greed. The principle to adhere to should be "pay a fair, income based share of the tax burden".
The scale does matter since it is being in that high earnings bracket that enables and encourages the employment of the tax advisers who design and operate the schemes.

In the sporting world exploiting a loophole is known as gamesmanship and generally is looked down on. Tax gamesmanship is nothing to admire and those using it deserve scorn.

I had a chat with a retired tax inspector a couple of years ago. He told me that in 30 years in the job, only twice had people volunteered to pay more tax than was demanded by the IR/HMRC. None of us like to give money away to the government, and most of us would rather pay less, I suspect. What sticks in the throat is people getting something that we perceive as unfair, whether that’s a banker’s bonus or a benefit cheat. When vodafone get away with cheating the taxman of billions, Carr’s sin seems relatively insignificant. Although he still shouldn’t have done it.

I have a confession to make. I take my spare cash and put it into something called an ISA. Its a way of shielding my money from income tax and capital gains tax, but i've been assured its legal. I'm afriad it does fit in with the "don't pay any tax if you can get away with it" principle. Please don't judge me, i just hope HMRC aren't reading this.

Looks like the media are now on a witch hunt for anyone who is a) famous b) earns a lot an c) isn't on PAYE. That should be bloody easy then. I see the BBC have started with Sir Chris Hoy. Olympic hero does nothing wrong shocker This really annoys me. It's like accusing David Cameron of being gay and then running a headline saying "PM denies being gay". Lazy and damaging.

Carr said something along the lines of 'My accountant said to me "Well, I've found a way you can earn £4m and pay 1% tax!" and I said "Sounds good to me!"' Anyone who makes a major financial decision like that without really, really knowing exactly what it was all about deserves everything they get.

It was, however, legal. If it's a loophole, work out how to close it. But then also go after the big boys like Vodafone.

Paying tax is the price we pay for living in a civilised society, up to a point, beyond which it becomes state sanctioned theft of my money. The amount of tax people are prepared to pay in the USA is lower than in Scandinavia as tolerance of the price of a civilised society is lower. Carr has shown he is selfish and given the subject of some of his jokes a hypocrite (but he scores no higher than 1 on the Geldof scale of hypocrisy). I would probably have done the same but unlike Carr I do not have enough money to warrant it or do I need an audience on my side to avoid all my jokes dying.

Is he going to pay tax on the money that was heretofore shielded in Jersey?

Given that legally he doesn't have to, but some people have decided that morally he does have to, maybe he gets to chose where to use the tax he voluntarily pays.

He could say, ok, I reckon I morally owe the treasury about £1.5m, so I'll spend that on some dialysis machines and a library or two. If its for charity then he could gift aid it, netting the recipient another 1% or something.

I've always been curious where the moral justification is for people who have more money to be asked to give more of it to run the country we all live in.

Rather like two people in a checkout queue each buying a tin of beans, one is wealthy and gets charged £4.53, the next is not wealthy and is charged 9p. Both get one tin of beans.

That, for me, sums up the taxation system where everyone has exactly the same rights of entitlement, but some have to pay more for it than others, and that seems fundamentally hard to justify...gives the Tax Office all the moral justification of a chugger picking on the bloke in a suit rather than a denim jacket.

Set against that purist argument is pretty much unarguable utility and pragmatism, as we are all pretty sure it just wouldn't work if we all paid the same taxation...unless it became a force for drivng up lower incomes and driving down higher incomes, and therefore became a force for equality?!?

HMRC doesn't want to be seen to be snatching the last morsel from the mouth of bawling poverty-stricken toddlers.

So, it delegates this task to those who profit from the purchases of the parents of those litt'uns.[insert here things that you think poor people should not be spending their money on rather than morsels of food for the kids; cigarettes, bingo, offshore tax haven investments, chicken nuggets, shoes etc]

When enough money has been siphoned across into the bank accounts of a relatively small number of people/companies HMRC send the heavies round to collect the wedge. Although those victims will still squeal like stuck pigs there are unlikely to be many plucked morsel scenarios.

I realise this economic model needs a little work but, hey, I'm only on the 2nd coffee of the morning and also trying to avoid putting on a further undercoat to the bathrrom window frames.

I'm confused by the beans analogy - because no one would be stupid enough to arrange a taxation system like that.

As to why should people with more money being asked to pay more tax, it's quite simple - if we took an equal amount of money from everybody to pay for the running of the country then those with the least would have no money to buy luxuries like food.

I also have a problem of equating Sweden and USA in the civilisation stakes. I know which I think is more civilised.

Duke has a point. Why should the super-rich pay more than the ordinary folk? They don't use state schools or NHS hospitals. They probably have their own security and street lighting too. They spend spare time in other, warmer countries. No-one earning a squillion is going to give HMRC half a squillion a year and not even expect a knighthood out of it.

I'm old enough to remember when another comedian, Ken Dodd, a lifelong Tory, got caught for a tax evasion by the more traditional means of hiding it under a mattress. He actually went on trial but was acquitted for some spurious reason. Cue the tabloid sob stories about tears-of-a-clown, hard upbringing in Liverpool, etc. About the same time, Lester Piggott, an inarticulate and unlikeable man who had done much the same, went to prison. Same old.

If more inarticulate and unlikeable men were sent to prison the country would be a better, more articulate and likeable place.

I quite like that he's apologised even though everybody knows that he doesn't really mean it. If he wasn't in a position where people's opinion of him could potentially cost him more than a back-dated tax bill then he wouldn't give a flying fuck.

Went to see Stewart Lee last night...as you can imagine he has a few words to say about Carr and his ilk (taking no prisoners).
So seen both Lee and Herring this year....surely the two best in the business.
I'm with Beau on this one - just don't make or earn enough to pay taxes.....that sticks it right up them.

re: 'earning'...Take Dyson as an example. He invented a vacuum that provided increased convenience for millions and jobs for thousands. He's made a few bob.

Now he is asked to chip an awful lot of those bobs in to the government coffers, when someone who hasn't invented anything / had a job is not asked to chip in anything; in fact, is able to collect some of Mr Dyson's bobs for nothing. And, as this is my allegory, I'm going to make him a slovenly little shite who won't even have the decency to buy an expensive over-engineered vacuum as a thank you.